


Hell was the Journey

by Anonymous



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alpha Dick Grayson, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - High School, Bruce Wayne is Owlman, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Earth-3, Good Parent Selina Kyle, Inspired by Fanfiction, Jason Todd is Catlad | Stray, Lactation Kink, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Jason Todd, Power Imbalance, Pregnancy Kink, Selina Kyle is Catwoman, Sexism, Unhealthy Relationships, light humor, they're both 18 and high school seniors, this is not underage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:02:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28222101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Turns out that Talon goes to this school, and chancing a quick glance, Jason identified him as the beloved, popular Dick Grayson. He was so screwed. Talon and his friend group sat in the back, with Talon in the far corner so he could watch the whole class. This forced Jason to turn his back to him--a dangerous thing, and to think Jason started the day worried about making friends.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 139
Collections: Anonymous





	Hell was the Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daemoninwhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daemoninwhite/gifts).



> So this work is based on daemoninwhite's au on tumblr! You can find her posts about it here: https://daemoninwhiteround2.tumblr.com/post/628162418488573952/could-we-the-adoring-masses-get-another-snapshot  
> https://daemoninwhiteround2.tumblr.com/post/612543013123719168/in-school-days-au-how-exactly-were-the-first-set  
> https://daemoninwhiteround2.tumblr.com/post/612198114614509568/i-hope-this-doesnt-come-off-as-too-much-but  
> https://daemoninwhiteround2.tumblr.com/post/612485694677565440/hi-my-school-just-canceled-for-the-remainder-of 
> 
> (I really recommend you read her stuff! It's all super good!)
> 
> Additionally, the title is from Taylor Swift's song "Invisible String"
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Jason thinks he could’ve gone his whole life without having a sexual encounter in his new high school’s alpha’s restroom. He could hear a toilet flushing in the background, and the stall only offered so much privacy. Not to mention that Talon was grinding up against him so hard that he was literally making the stall move back and forth. Still, as he felt Talon bite his way down his neck, he thought that it could definitely be worse. Gotham Academy’s bathrooms were a lot cleaner than his former high school’s bathrooms were, and Talon wasn’t murdering him so…whatever. Really, once Jason realized that he had transferred to Talon’s school, he knew something like this would happen. He figured that it was only a matter of time until Talon finally decided to dick him down or kill him—it was really a 50/50 shot with him. (And, Jason idly thought, he was never going to be able to make dick jokes anymore. Now all he would be able to think of when he made them would be Dick Grayson, and that was truly the worst part about learning Talon’s identity: the loss of any high school boy’s best humor material.)

But Jason’s embarrassment couldn’t stop at being shoved up against a bathroom stall with _the_ Talon grinding against him; no, his body had to sense that there was an interested alpha in front of him who might breed him but not mate him (or just kill him), which were both unacceptable outcomes to his omega instincts. His body reacted to the strong, gorgeous, ~~virile~~ alpha, and decided that it had to do everything to draw him in for good—meaning he started lactating. Right in the middle of a public restroom. Jason can feel his cheeks heating up as his scent takes on a distinctly milky tone, and Talon stops his menstruations.

“Oh, kitty, making milk just for me?” Talon’s eyes lock with Jason’s for a second, and he can feel his heart jump up to his throat. “Such a good little omega. I’ll make sure to take good care of you, hmm.” Talon drops his face back into Jason’s neck and drags his nose along his scent gland, and Jason realizes what he’s about to do a split second before he does it. Jason couldn’t stop him even if he wanted to, but the truth is that he doesn’t want him to stop. He knows the benefits of being Talon’s mate too well to ever turn them down. Alphas are always willing to protect their omegas with their life—no exceptions. It’s part of what the bond does to an alpha, and with a mate as powerful and well connected as Talon? Well, Jason won’t have to worry about being harassed by creeps on the streets anymore or about being sold in a human trafficking ring or any of the other horrible things that happen to fertile omegas (or being murdered by Talon, his mind helpfully reminds him). Every omega knows this, which is why it’s so common for omegas to mate before they graduate high school. It says something bad about their society, but none of the alphas or betas care enough to listen. So, it is what it is, and Jason’s going to take advantage of it.

That’s why, when Talon’s fangs break Jason’s skin, Jason keens and pushes closer to Talon’s body. In all of their interactions thus far, Talon has had the upper hand, but he just gave Jason everything he ~~wanted~~ needed. As Talon’s lips trail down from his neck to his chest, Jason thinks he can give Talon what he wants now too.

“Alpha, please, milk me,” Jason doesn’t even have to play up the breathy, pleading tone in his voice. It’s already there, and Talon—wearing Dick Wayne’s inhumanly beautiful face—growls _mine_ , lifts up his shirt, and latches onto his nipple. Jason moans at the sensation of the warm mouth suckling him and clenches his legs tighter around Talon’s waist. The bond had just formed a second ago, but with Talon milking him like he is, it’s growing stronger by the second. The now empty bathroom (the person using the bathroom earlier had probably heard them and decided to get the hell out of dodge) and the cold stall touching his now bare back fade into the background. In Jason’s mind, there is only Talon’s mouth and their budding bond, and Jason doesn’t want him to stop. He feels a purr making its way up his throat, and he lets it out. That’s part of being a good omega, (Selina taught him that like she taught him a hundred other things and ways to seduce an alpha, but even she never actually got a mating bite from one of the owls. Knowing this makes Jason preen internally.) and while Jason just secured one of the best bachelor alphas in Gotham, he thinks Talon just got one of the best unmated omegas in Gotham too.

* * *

( _Earlier that morning_ )

Jason is way more nervous than he should be. He’s simply starting a new school (but, his mind reminds him, it’s senior year. You’re going to be the new kid, and everyone will gawk at you. You’ll be the outsider.) It’s stupid that he’s worrying about this. He goes out weekly with Selina under the alias Catlad to help her assassinate people in return for a hefty sum of money. High school is nothing in comparison. Still, he’s an eighteen-year-old omega, and he would really like to make some friends. Unlike his last school, everyone here is rich, and Jason is going to have to refrain from flinching at their open displays of wealth (because at heart he’ll always be that street kid who had to steal to make sure he didn’t starve to death).

Selina taught him how to blend in with the rich crowd, and Jason is confident enough in his acting abilities to know that isn’t the problem. The problem is that teenagers are unpredictable, so he doesn’t know how they’ll react to him. He saw enough newcomers at his old school be welcomed into the popular crowd or become the subject of derision.

He steels himself as he heads to his first class of the day—AP government—and sits at a seat in the middle of the classroom. He’s lucky that he transferred at the beginning of the year; none of the teachers will make him introduce himself since all of the students are new to their class. The classroom quickly fills up, and a boisterous group of alphas walk in talking about their summer activities. Jason forces himself not to flinch as he hears one of the alphas complain about spending the whole summer in Italy instead of France like they wanted.

But no matter how hard Jason tried, he couldn’t suppress his flinch when the next alpha started talking because _he recognized that voice._ Turns out that Talon goes to this school, and chancing a quick glance, Jason identified him as the beloved, popular Dick Grayson. He was so screwed. Talon and his friend group sat in the back, with Talon in the far corner so he could watch the whole class. This forced Jason to turn his back to him--a dangerous thing, and to think Jason started the day worried about making friends. Now he had the much larger fear of Talon—Dick? Whatever—ripping his throat out. Jason could tell that Talon was at least somewhat interested in him, but as far as he could tell, the interest was more like that of a dog with their chew toy than an alpha romantically interested in an omega. He knew that one day Talon would tire of him and then it would be game over, ~~or he might actually act on his flirtations, but Jason wasn’t holding his breath~~. Predators don’t court their prey, and Jason was (mostly?) sure that Talon saw him as just that: prey.

It was only two minutes before the bell rang to signal the start of class, but it felt like an eternity. Jason mostly tuned out the teacher, Mr. Arnold or something, as he talked about the syllabus and what to expect from the class, but once the class had just twenty minutes left, the teacher switched topics. “OK, every class I like to dedicate at least fifteen minutes to discussing current events and see what your opinions on them are. Would anyone like to start?”

“I’ll start,” One of the beta girls at the front of the class said, “I think the president’s daughter, what’s her name?”

“Rose Wilson,” her friend pipped up.

“Has some serious balls. Really, publicly saying we should fight against the Crime Syndicate? That’s big knot energy right there, and she’s a beta. Take a note, alphas.” Ah yes, Rose Wilson had recently come out and made a quite controversial statement that America should go to war against the Crime Syndicate. Her father, President Slade Wilson, had been quick to publicly shoot her down saying that America would do no such thing. But the Crime Syndicate was a tyrant, and people were mad. More and more people started to support what Rose Wilson had said, saying they don’t want to live under the boot of supervillains forever. Some felt strongly enough that they would die fighting for it, and some of those people already had as the Crime Syndicate didn’t take kindly to the ideas of an uprising.

“Do you, Ms. Lila, have anything more substantial to add?” The girl shook her head, and the teacher continued, “Well, I think this is one of the biggest pieces of news out currently, so it is a good topic. Does anyone else have any opinions on it?”

The omega girl sitting right next to Jason raised her hand, and with a nod from the teacher, she said, “I think it’s a really complicated issue because, if anyone were to host a successful war on the Crime Syndicate, they would need _a lot_ of people behind it, and right now, people who are in favor of it are scared to say so because some of the people who have spoken out have been killed in ‘mysterious circumstances.’” She made quotation marks with her fingers around the words “mysterious circumstances,” and though Jason fully agreed with what she said, he wondered what she would’ve said if she knew Talon was in the room. Jason felt a powerful urge to glimpse at Talon, but he forced himself not too. It would be too risky, even if most of the people in the class would think he just had a crush on him or thought he was hot or something.

Then the man of the hour decided to pitch in, “I think it’s a bad idea. We know the Crime Syndicate doesn’t have any qualms with violence or bloodshed, so the only way we would win in a war against them is if we destroy or detain them all, which isn’t likely given how powerful they are. I think Rose Wilson is just pointlessly endangering people and riling them up.”

“Well said Ms. Li and Mr. Grayson. You both have valid points. Anyone else?” Mr. Arnold (Allen? Anderson?) asked. He looked around the room, and Jason could tell everyone who hadn’t already spoken was avoiding eye contact, him included. Once the silence stretched on for an awkward amount of time, the teacher continued, “We’ve only heard two real opinions on this topic and it’s barely been three minutes. Come on people, if you don’t volunteer, I will call on you.” No one raised their hand. It was understandable. This was a dangerous topic, and people were scared by the Crime Syndicate. Jason himself had a lot of respect for Rose Wilson, and if Talon hadn’t been in this class, in this school, or in his life, he thinks he would’ve voiced that out loud. As it was, however, saying that he thought Rose Wilson was right with Talon _right there_ was a death sentence, and Jason was a little attached to his life, thank you very much.

“Going once…going twice,” The teacher looked around, and his eyes settled on Jason’s form. Oh no. The man looked at his name sheet and said “Mr. Todd, what are your opinions on what Ms. Rose Wilson said?”

Jason thought about how he could answer this without getting an angry Talon on his back. He drummed his fingers on the desk and said, “I agree with what was said earlier, I think. The Crime Syndicate is super dangerous, and a lot of people support them, which means it might be hard to get the necessary numbers to even have a chance against them. I don’t think it would be a good choice to declare war on them.” There, he thought that was a good answer, but he felt a need to continue. Rose Wilson hadn’t just said this out of nowhere, and he felt like he had to defend her. “There’s rumors going around that the Crime Syndicate was responsible for the first lady’s death. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I think Ms. Wilson heard about that—and it’s personal to her, you know? That was her mom, so I think she just got angry and wasn’t thinking straight.”

“An interesting assessment of the situation, to be sure. Ah, Mr. Grayson, do you have something to add?” Oh no. Talon felt the need to respond to Jason’s answer. He thought his answer would be owl approved even if the whole Crime Syndicate now had a grudge against the president’s daughter, but maybe he wasn’t careful enough?

“I think that, regardless of her reasons for saying what she did, she still endangered people with her ideas. All of the people who have publicly declared that they’re against the Crime Syndicate and then died, are on her shoulders. She’s giving them false hope, and that’s not a very good thing to do, is it kitten?”

Oh shit, he knew.

Jason could hear one of Talon’s friends asking him what the nickname was about, but it all faded away in the face of his fear. Talon had figured out his identity. He was no longer just a random face in the crowd. Talon loved bothering (flirting? Fighting?) Catlad, and now Jason would have no respite from it. He would have nowhere to run when things turned south. He chanced turning around to look at Talon, and he was staring right at him. He mouthed, “meet me after class,” and Jason could feel his fear mounting.

The conversation continued on, but Jason didn’t--couldn't listen to a thing that was said. When the bell finally rang to signal the end of class, the omega girl sitting by Jason turned to him and asked, “You’re new right? I saw you at the office this morning. I wanted to say hello, but there wasn't enough time before class. I transferred here my sophomore year, so I know how hard the transition is. If you don't know the building well, I could take you to your next class, if you want?” She smiled brightly at him. “Oh, and my name’s Marissa,” she added as an afterthought.

Jason turned to see where Talon was and saw that he was leaning by the doorframe, starring at him and Marissa. “I can’t right now. I need to meet up with someone, but I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, Gotham Academy is a small school, and if you’re taking all AP classes, we’ll probably have a lot of them together. How about I’ll try to find you at lunch, and you can sit with me and my friends?”

Jason put all of his mental strength into trying to give the girl a genuine smile. She was sweet, and he really appreciated that she was offering to let him sit with her at lunch, but he wasn’t completely able to shake off his nerves with Talon standing right there. He still managed to muster up a, “that sounds great!” though so it wasn’t a complete loss.

He took a deep breath and started walking towards Talon. As he approached, Talon gave him one of his big smiles that he always gave to Catlad when he did something Talon thought was particularly stupid or when he was about to attack him. Neither were great interpretations for what was about to happen. Who knew what Talon had planned? He couldn’t kill him on school property, right?

(No, but they sure could mate on school property, and honestly that was the best outcome. Jason hadn’t even considered it as a possibility! Though now Jason was with the owl pack, wasn’t he? ~~That’s a horrifying thought.~~ No, he had just got marked. Now was a time for happiness.)

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading! (Also, I'm not 100% sure I remembered to tag everything, so if you think I should add something, just let me know!)


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